THE HARVESTER TRUST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1756, 1 November 1905, Page 20

THE HARVESTER TRUST.

GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS. BOARD OF ADVICE SET UP. PROTECTION OF LOCAL INDUSTRIES. Early last Saturday in the House of Representatives the Premier brought down proposals to deal 'with the competition of trusts, notably the American Harvester Trust, embodied in a measure called the Agricultural Implement Manufacture, Importation, and Sale Bill. This bill provides for the compilation of a standard list giving the description of each implement, the nature and quality of the materials used in its construction, and the price current on the passing of the act. The implements to which the act relates are ploughs of all kinds harrows, disc-harrows, drills (combined grain, seed, and manure, ten coulters), drills (grain), rollers (land and Cambridge over 7cwt), cultivators and grubhers (over 2 cwt), chaff-cutters (9i_n. mouth and over), self-bagging chaffcutters, and seed-cleaners. Provision is made for setting up an Inquiry Board consisting of the President and members of the Arbitration Court • the president for the time being of the Farmers’ Union; a nominee of the Trades and Labour Council; and a representative of the agricultural and pastoral associations. If the manufacturers of the colony reduce the price of implements by 20 per cent, the Board is then te be called together to report whether a duty should be put on equal to the reduction made. If the implement manufacturers raise the price, the Board is to recommend the duty to be put on. , . . ~ Mr Seddon, in briefly explaining the scope of the bill, said it was only a tentative measure, and' if nothing was done by the Harvester Trust to unduly injure the industries of the colony, things, of course, would remain as they and there would be no necessity to bring the bill into operation. Mr Massey said he did not like the bill very much. The bill was read a first time.